Shih Pao-ch'ang's Preface to Lives of the Nuns
[1]
Literally, "The man who longs to emulate Yen will be the same kind of
person as Yen." Yen Hui was a disciple of Confucius. The full quotation is
found in Chin shu, chap. 82, biography of Yü P'u. Shih Pao-ch'ang has
reversed the two phrases.
[2]
Sages, of whom the most famous is Lao-tzu in Lao-tzu tao teh ching,
chap. 56: "Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know."
Another sage is Chuang-tzu, in chap. 22: "Perfect speech is giving up speech."
("Perfect speech is the abandonment of speech," Burton Watson, Complete
Works of Chuang Tzu, p. 247.)
[3]
The Three Ages are the periods of the first age of the True Dharma (Law)
lasting five hundred or one thousand years; the second age, the counterfeit
age, lasting five hundred or one thousand years; the third age is the decay of
the Dharma. The time span for these ages varies according to the source,
depending on the length of ages the Chinese used to determine the birth date
of the Buddha (Ch'en,
Buddhism in China, pp. 297-298).
